Yeah I met Sean a handful of times but the first time I met him was in like 11 or 12 when plastidip first came out and they dipped his car...before the digi-camo and all that jazz.

He's a pretty great stand-up dude. He's pretty quick up the hills, too!

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghost_22_47

Coming along nicely, keep up the great work. And if anyone is confused why you're putting a rotary in the Datsun all they need to know is that's your car/project not theirs lol

That argument never really meant anything to me. I've never liked cars just to like cars, and have always believed people should have some kind of critical thinking going into modifications to their vehicles. I don't like nonsense builds.

UPDATE TIME!

Because it's Saturday, I have an update on the build! I think I've solidified most of the fender profile at this point. I'd say it looks pretty good, and is ready for some final touches and blending to the bumper.

I don't really have a way to express how much math and thinking went into the cage so far, but here are the key points:

1. It's friction-fit.
I didn't even need to tack it into place, it's so tight against the body.

2. It's symmetrical.
... and level within 5mm from any point to any other point

3. There are no visibility problems.
The diagonal X is 16" lower than the roofline, so it won't interfere with my rear-view mirror.

4. It reclines 10 degrees.
Originally I was planning on 15 degrees, as that would fit the lines of the body and rear quarter windows nicely, but FIA regulations require no more than 10 degrees. I'd like to keep my options open as to what racing I do in this car, so I'm going with the most stringent sanctioning body I know of.

Last edited by drummingpariah; 11-26-2016 at 08:40 PM.
Reason: spelling

Today registration for the Mt Washington Hillclimb race opened (Climb to the Clouds 2017). This has been my life goal for the past three years, since I purchased this car.

For those who aren't already familiar with it, Mt Washington is the closest hillclimb to my home (around two hours away). It's also twice as long as the longest hill we typically run (over 7 miles). It happens roughly once every three years, and is a pretty big deal overall.

The last time it ran I crewed for a friend and one of my racing mentors, Jamie Melhuish. It was quite an experience. In addition to learning twice as much course, we only get four practice runs. Each of those runs is only half of the course, so the first time we stitch the whole hill together, it's the first timed run. There are two timed runs. This is where a rally-style codriver reading pace notes becomes a massive benefit, but I'll be doing it solo. That means watching a lot of footage from past events, and spending a few days driving up at street-legal speeds to ensure that I actually know the course.

Right now, my registration is in, but that doesn't necessarily mean I've been invited to race. I would need to be selected from the list of applicants to be invited to race. In any event, the only way I can be ready for the event if I'm accepted is to continue as planned and assume I'll make it to the start line.

To say I'm excited is a gross understatement, like saying that an atom is "rather small."

To celebrate having registered, I spent the night re-mathing and re-bending the driver's apillar. Tomorrow is the passenger, and the weekend is coping and tacking, then adding rockers, windshield, and dash bar. So far, everything is 1.75" DOM.

For my own future reference, this is 20" straight, then a 47 degree bend, followed by 24" straight, 13 degree twist on a 42 degree bend, then 24" straight (which will be trimmed and coped to fit the main hoop). I may add one more slight inward bend to meet up with the main hoop.

I didn't really plan to get anything done today, just clean up the shop a bit in preparation for the weekend. Man, was I wrong. I nailed the passenger side A pillar so nicely, I decided to make another driver's side replacement ... but twisted the wrong way, which resulted in another perfect passenger's side A pillar. Then I made one more driver's side, and went so far as to add a small bend on the back of it to get it to fit up with the main hoop just so.

Tomorrow, I get to break out the welder, tack it together, and start in on reinforcements.

Finally, everything's aligned and tack welded into place. I spent most of the day fine-tuning fitment so it's symmetrical on both sides and so I have as much headroom as possible, but the results are worth it.

All told, I bent 6 'not quite right' A pillars throughout this process, so roughly 40' of material that didn't make it onto the car. It'll all get used, as door bars or similar.

My friends Mike and Matty came out to help, and we wrapped up the rear body jig, then centered and leveled the body on the chassis. The A pillars weren't perfectly symmetrical, so they came out, received appropriate trimming, and went back in. We coped the dash bar, and bent up all the door bars.

With the car on the rear body jig, we pulled the 2x4's that were supporting the middle of the car. A new horizontal support bar was welded in in front of the A pillars, and the existing horizontal support bar was removed. That free'd up enough room to test fit the seat, and it looks fantastic. I couldn't get any photos of it, but there's plenty of room all around in this thing.

Finally, we took some measurements to ensure that everything that's tacked together so far will pass tech without any issues, and pressed on 'till midnight.

I think I've mentioned it before but in case I hadn't, we're recording a whole web series for this build, similar to what I did for the CRX. I've always enjoyed watching honest, well-produced video over reading build threads, and thought I'd give it a go. As I learned from the CRX build, it really requires a dedicated film crew (of at least 1 person). The level of quality I want really isn't possible if I'm trying to build and film at the same time.

With that goal in mind, I spent the morning laying out the video capture gear and taking an inventory of what we use on a regular basis. This is the result.

Yeah, I agree. This might be a bit silly.

Anyway, with that out of the way Mike and I started off by finishing coping for the dash bar, which looks pretty solid now.

After lunch, Mike took care of the sill bar coping and I took care of the bent door bars. They aren't quite ready to weld in, but we're making good progress.

Unfortunately, we ran out of material for the remaining sill/rocker bar and the windshield bar (both are required to run Mt Washington). I'll have another 24' arriving Monday morning. Tomorrow, I think I want to set our sights on tackling the front suspension jig, since the 'core' of the cage structure is finally coming together.

After test fitting the seat, I decided to move the floor up significantly. With my original floor location, a 6'2" person would have to struggle to see over the dashboard. The higher the floor is, the more ground clearance I can add or the lower I can place the center of gravity. I like both of those things, and I'm only 5'6" so if I'm going to go to any extreme, it'll be the "build for short people" rather than "built for tall people" extreme.

Unfortunately, that was not a trivial change to make. I had to chop out the sill bars and door bars, then I had to cut out the X brace in the main hoop. Having the X brace terminate below the floor would defeat the purpose of moving the floor up, so it HAD to go.

I made new sill bars and X braces, and am just starting to catch back up to where I was a couple weeks ago.

We went from this:

to this:

It looks like such a simple change, but was a pretty massive effort. On the positive side, I'm getting quite good at coping with an angle grinder now!